Al Bendari & the Bunduqia

A few weeks ago it was springtime in Qatar and all was right with the Gulf. It was my first trip back in almost a year. As usual for the past decade plus, Doha was practically unrecognizable. The city’s growth spurt is matching & beating the incredible speed at which my siblings are growing.

In it’s bid for the 2016 Olympics it’s overshadowing and burying them in a time-elapsed construction underbrush. Glassy tower-blocks and stadiums are mangling the already crowded sky-line.It really does remind me of an ungainly teenager: hands too big for his spindly arms, knock-kneed, acne-d and sprouting hair in strange places.

So when I was invited to participate in an exhibition in a Souk Waqif gallery, I decided to make a video-piece.It was an installation-love-note both to pubescent Doha and to my younger brother and sister who are on the cusp of adolescence.

Really I was just having some fun with the ol’ Final Cut.

Harmless enough thought I.

After only one day of being projected cinema-sized onto a corner (imagine the video’s central split-screen aligned with said corner), it was noticed by the wrong man. Calls were made. There was an attempt to turn it off by his entourage of sunglassed men.A mini-censorship scufuffle ensued.

We’ll just refer to the man responsible as #4. The reason his lackies gave?“Al-Bendari & the Bunduqia” displayed too much Emerati culture for a Qatari gallery…

?!

#4 is the Bond villain in the taut-psychological thriller that is my jet-setting, crime-fighting life.

I would appreciate comments or conjecture on this subject as I am still somewhat slightly baffled.